Fifteen years makes for a pretty good sample size. Those who doubted in 1999 the prospects of a college ice hockey tournament in Savannah should acknowledge its success, and maybe even check out the final night of the Hockey Classic today at the Civic Center.

OK, so the original, violence-tinged slogan, “The Rumble in the Rink,” is long gone, as is the first title sponsor Memorial Health, replaced by Savannah Tire. But the basic four-team classic format has remained through recent expansion involving rivals South Carolina and The Citadel to make for a three-night annual event — and it is an event.

John Hoos, who played for Georgia in the 1999 event and has coached the Ice Dogs ever since, was asked last year to describe the Hockey Classic for the uninitiated.

“An electric atmosphere, a feeling of anticipation and excitement of what’s going to take place on the ice in a very fast-paced collision sport,” Hoos said. “You’re going to see lots of action. The fans maybe new to hockey will understand what hockey’s all about.”

For area fans of original entrants Georgia, Georgia Tech and Florida as well as Florida State (which replaced Tennessee in 2000), it’s an opportunity to root for your school and against your rivals in person in Savannah instead of at the campuses in Athens, Atlanta, Gainesville and Tallahassee or at some road venue.

Dressed in team colors and full of voice, fans come fully loaded for battle in these bragging-rights skirmishes, and a few, unfortunately, are just loaded. Cheer or boo or sit on your hands, but leave the vulgarities at home with the rally sticks and vuvuzelas.

Georgia Tech fans have had the most to cheer about in recent years, as the Yellow Jackets won the Thrasher Cup as event champion in 2009, ’11, ’12 and seven times total. Georgia is next with five titles. In a four-year stretch from 2007-10, four different schools raised the trophy.

Florida State’s lone Cup in 2008 was momentous in breaking the Peach State duo’s nine-year hold on the Thrasher Cup (named for the NHL team in Atlanta, remember them?). It showed that the Seminoles could not only compete with but also defeat the Jackets and the Gators over one special weekend.

A real ice breaker

Displaying the Thrasher Cup got the attention of students back in Tallahassee, many of whom didn’t know about the school-sanctioned club team.

“Everybody was surprised we actually won something,” Howie Stoughton, who scored the winning goals in the two overtime games, said later. “They weren’t expecting much from us. There’s not a whole lot of publicity. We don’t play in and around Tallahassee.”

That’s the thing about these club teams: They find ice wherever and whenever they can get it, often at odd hours at a rink hours away from campus. They don’t have the conveniences and resources allowed for their colleges’ varsity teams, and no one is mistaking club hockey for the NCAA level of the sport. They knew that going in.

Hockey can be an encumbrance to their studies and other obligations, but they juggle it all, play hard and play with pride.

The Hostess City

The four squads look forward all year to the Savannah trip, where they are welcomed warmly and treated as heroes by local alumni and fans. Georgia players probably get a bigger kick out of giving autographs than those Bulldog faithful who line up for them after each game.

“There’s an extra jump in their steps because of the environment we’re in, and the natural rivalry,” Hoos said.

Savannah is their reward. They may not make the postseason, or beat their biggest rivals during other regular-season matches. But on this grand stage, in the spotlight with music blasting and perhaps 100 times more people in the stands than usual, they play to get their hands on the Cup and pose for that joyous team photo at center ice.

Hockey has a thing about cups.

Before the game last year against Georgia with the Thrasher Cup on the line and a sellout crowd of 5,406 in attendance, Georgia Tech goaltender C.J. Layer said of the Hockey Classic, “This is our Stanley Cup. These are our two biggest games of the season.”